We hosted a class in sheep artificial insemination the first week of December. 10 students from all over the US and even one from Canada came to learn about non-surgical procedure that Dr. Purdy has developed. Students got to practice thawing straws of frozen semen...

Thanksgiving is over. For the last several years we haven’t had turkey on Thanksgiving because I was not able to get a locally raised heritage bird. I like the flavor and I want to support rare breeds so if I can’t get a bird raised like I want it we’ll choose...

One of the hardest things to manage when you use chest freezers for storing meat for sale is how to handle the depths of the freezer and not lose track of what you have. I’ve discovered a few tricks over the years that are applicable to anyone with a chest freezer. My...

So you’re buying sheep from across the country. What’s involved from the time you agree to purchase sheep until your new sheep arrive at your farm? Well the rules vary a lot but here are the basic things you will need to deal with. Paperwork Every...

The American Black Welsh Mountain Sheep Association and Desert Weyr, LLC is pleased to announce that we will be hosting an intensive 2-day seminar on non-surgical sheep artificial insemination December 5-6, 2018 Dr. Philip Purdy from the USDA National Animal Germplasm...

Black Welsh Mountain sheep in North America are highly inbred. Our founding population was very small so we do not have much variation from which to select. In the USDA’s National Animal Germplasm Program performed a cluster analysis study on the population. This...

We’re getting excited for the first Art and Ag tour in the North Fork Valley next weekend. This event showcases our many artist studios and galleries and also our wonderful agricultural products. Here at our farm the community is invited to help weave a special...

One of the tasks every year is to evaluate all the sheep and decide who we are keeping vs who is for sale or will go to slaughter. We try to provide top quality sheep as breeding stock and that only happens because we cull heavily. Today was the evaluations on the...

It’s hot, hot, hot! No rain and our temperatures are soaring with the humidity low. I sure don’t want to cook anything and heat up the house but we have severe fire restrictions and no open flames are allowed so outdoor BBQ isn’t an option. Luckily I...

Our first batch of hay for the season has arrived. We were expecting to get about 7 tons but the cutting was small so we only got 3.5 tons. At least it’s in the barn now and safe for winter feeding for the sheep.

Our expected start of lambing is 22 April. Normally by now we are out on pasture but the grass hasn’t grown enough yet so I’m holding the sheep in on hay for longer. These 2 sisters are some of our top producing sheep with great EBVs. They and their other...

Behind as per usual in posting here. We spent a week in October working with the USDA NAGP to collect and freeze semen from our rams. Some will be used later this year in our flock as part of their experiment in fine tuning the timing for insemination of synchronized...

Just finished the ewe evaluations for the fall. I’ve updated the sales list to show the dozen yearling we are offering as breeding stock. We are keeping 52 breeding ewes and these yearlings are some great breeding sheep. They are all double registered in the US...

We have heard that our good friend, John Ellenby has passed on. One of the companies he founded was Agilis. This picture has been on our wall for years. And in the archives of old hardware we have these, a Compass and a GRiDPad. Here is a good article about John and...

We are now officially in the lambing lull, that break between when the AI lambs and lambs from the AI backup rams are due and the lambs sired by the secondary rams are due. It’s been a busy and somewhat difficult lambing so far. Our AI experiment was a rousing...

We got the ewes out onto one of the pastures. There isn’t much grass but we need them to start moving so they are in good shape for lambing. They sure like to go out and find the tasty bits. They are moving in and out a lot and that will help with their...

The rams spend a lot of time in the front pear orchard pasture. Unfortunately they get bored and tend to bash the trees. So we finally got them protected by some welded wire fencing. I hope that will keep the trees...

There is a wonderful bronze foundry in our town and today we got a tour. Moving the crucible with hot metal ready to pour into the molds. The Molds are pre-heated so they won’t crack. They are placed ready to be filled. The molten metal is poured into the molds...

We’re planning on reconfiguring the sheep sweep handling system when we put it under the other side of the hay barn. But to be sure it will fit and see how the sheep work through it we decided to get it moved up to the main hay barn area before shearing. Here it...

Pregnant Ewe The ewes aren’t due to lamb until the last week in April. However, they are really round now. I always tell people that our sheep are wider than they are tall when they are heavily pregnant but most folks don’t believe me. So here is the...

Now that we’ve made the transition to large square hay bales we no longer need the backstop that the old hay stack wagon used to push the small bales up against. We’ve decided to take it down and see if we can move the sheep handling system under the hay...

Even more snow. Ken has to plow every day just to keep a path open. This is the gate into the ram pen. We’ll have to shovel it out again to get hay in. Even the yearling ewes are not going out into their corral much at all. Garvin Mesa Road was completely...

This has been one of the snowiest winters in a long time. The aisle way under the hay barn and the ram pens are totally filled with snow. It’s almost up to the eaves in back of the garage. And the red barn is nearly buried...

Winnie got injured. Emergency vet call to come out and stitch her back up. She crawled through the water tank to get to the other pen of sheep. Something was in there. She got caught on an exposed piece of welded wire and ripped her side...

Last day of 2015. Sofia goes out with us to feed every morning. Here she is learning how to sit quietly and guarding the hay. She also loves the rams. There is one that comes up to her to have his face licked every morning and...

The deep snow up high has brought the elk back down to the valley. This big bull is eating the old hay we spread as mulch last fall. Meanwhile, Ken is trying to clear out enough snow from the aisle way so we can get in to feed the ram...

We are again doing research with the USDA National Animal Germplasm Program. This year we are collecting blood samples as well as other data on the ewes to evaluate their ovulation status. The experiment calls for blood collections every hour so we have a lot to do....

Every year we have to take the irrigation pipes apart before winter sets in. They are drained out so they won’t freeze and crack. This year Ken caught a small trout that was in the pipes. He brought him down to the big pond. We’ve rescued several trout...

Ken got a deer tag this year and today he got a nice buck out back in the cedars. We gave the buck the nickname Trevor. It’s a rather long story but started after Bob and Carolyn shared with us the Australian poet Bill Kearns and his poem Entrapment. You can...

Sofia has arrived and is settling in. She is small enough to get out of every pen and can crawl through the welded wire panels. She is so excited that we are concerned she will run the regnant sheep a bit too much so we are keeping her separate from but adjacent to...